The Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) is a college athletic conference comprising schools that compete in 15

sports Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...

(13 men's and 13 women's). It has 220 member institutions in

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges and ...

Divisions I, II, and

III III or iii may refer to: Companies * Information International, Inc., a computer technology company * Innovative Interfaces, Inc., a library-software company * 3i, formerly Investors in Industry, a British investment company Other uses * Ins ...

, ranging in location from Maine to South Carolina and west to Missouri. Most or all members belong to at least one other

athletic conference An athletic conference is a collection of sports teams, playing competitively against each other in a sports league. In many cases conferences are subdivided into smaller divisions, with the best teams competing at successively higher levels. Con ...

. The ECAC was founded as the Central Office for Eastern Intercollegiate Athletics in 1938, largely through the efforts of James Lynah of

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to ...

. In 1983, the Eastern Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (EAIAW) was consolidated into the ECAC. Most member schools are in other conferences as well, but through the ECAC they are able to participate in sports that their main conferences do not offer. Its headquarters are located in Danbury, Connecticut. The ECAC also now offers esports competitions to its member schools.

Membership

Division I

As of spring 2018, there are 87 Division I members.

Division II

As of spring 2018, there are 26 Division II members.

Division III

As of spring 2018, there are 107 Division III members.

Affiliates

The ECAC has several affiliated single-sport leagues: *

Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges The Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges (EARC) is a college athletic conference of eighteen men's college rowing crews. It is an affiliate of the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC). Members Eighteen colleges and universities are membe ...

Eastern Association of Women's Rowing Colleges The Eastern Association of Women's Rowing Colleges (EAWRC) is a college athletic conference of eighteen women's college rowing crew teams. The conference is an affiliate of the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC). Members :''See footnote' ...

* ECAC Equestrian * Eastern Intercollegiate Gymnastics League * Intercollegiate Rowing Association * Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes in America *

ECAC Lacrosse League The ECAC Lacrosse League was an American NCAA Division I college athletic conference and part of the Eastern College Athletic Conference. Founded in 1999 with play beginning in 2000, this part of the conference only sponsored men's lacrosse. It di ...

(defunct) * ECAC Division II Lacrosse League (defunct) *

ECAC Hockey ECAC Hockey is one of the six conferences that compete in NCAA Division I ice hockey. The conference used to be affiliated with the Eastern College Athletic Conference, a consortium of over 300 colleges in the eastern United States. This re ...

(independent since 2004)

Sports

ECAC men's basketball tournaments

At various times, the ECAC has organized regional

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

championship tournaments at the end of the regular season for teams playing at the NCAA Division I, Division II, and Division III levels. It held the Division I tournaments from 1975 to 1982 to provide independent colleges and universities in the northeastern United States with a means of participating in end-of-season tournaments that resulted in the winning team receiving an automatic bid to the

NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, branded as NCAA March Madness and commonly called March Madness, is a single-elimination tournament played each spring in the United States, currently featuring 68 college basketball teams fro ...

, similar to the end-of-season tournaments held by conventional athletic conferences. The Division I ECAC tournaments were discontinued after all participating schools joined conferences of their own during the late 1970s and early 1980s.Varsity Pride: ECAC Men's Basketball Tournaments
The ECAC also held combined Division II/III regional end-of- season tournaments from 1973 to 1980 and a single Division II-only tournament after the regular season from 1988 to 2006 and in 2007, 2008, and 2014. Since 1981, it has organized regional Division III-only men's basketball tournaments annually at the end of each regular season.

ECAC Division III football bowls

In football, the ECAC organizes six

NCAA Division III NCAA Division III (D-III) is a division of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States. D-III consists of athletic programs at colleges and universities that choose not to offer athletic scholarships to their ...

bowl game In North America, a bowl game is one of a number of post-season college football games that are primarily played by teams belonging to the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). For most of its history, the Division I Bowl Subdivi ...

s each year, three in its North region and three in its South region. The conference selects six ECAC member teams from the North region and six teams from the South region to participate in the bowls and seeds them one through six in each region, with the top three seeds in each region serving as the host institutions for the games. *North Region: **ECAC Northwest Bowl **ECAC North Atlantic Bowl **ECAC Northeast Bowl *South Region: **ECAC Southwest Bowl **ECAC South Atlantic Bowl **ECAC Southeast Bowl

Awards

:''See footnotes'' * Div. I FBS Football Major Awards * Div. I FCS Football Major Awards * Div II Football Major Awards * Div. III Football Major Awards *Robbins Scholar-Athletes *Award of Merit (for student-athletes) *Award of Valor (for student-athletes) *ECAC Rowing TrophyECAC Awards and Honors: ECAC Rowing Trophy
ECAC official website. Retrieved 2010-03-03.

References

External links

* {{Coord, 41, 38, 34, N, 70, 20, 47.48, W, display=title Sports leagues established in 1938 1938 establishments in the United States